[Info-vax] Ken Olsen

[Neil Rieck]

Some say that the only real meaning to life is to try to leave the
world in a better place than you found it. I think it is safe to say
that both the computer industry, as well as planet Earth, are better
off because of the efforts of Ken Olsen.

At an OpenVMS seminar in Toronto back in 2005, Sue Skonetski was
handing out a small number of "DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC" so I raised
my hand. Well what an unexpected surprise. Ken Olsen could see what
was going on at DEC and so commissioned Edgar Schein and others to
come and begin writing a pre-mortem as a warning to other American
companies. In today's world many CEOs want to cover up their mistakes,
or wax poetically about the good old days, but not Ken. He was
thinking about his industry and his country first.

Between "DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC" and "Show Stopper! The Breakneck
Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft" I was
shocked at how much DEC technology (both h/w and s/w) as well as DEC
employees ended up making a difference at other companies.

Ken, you made a difference and will be missed.

Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/docs/recommended_books.html#dec-is-dead
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/docs/recommended_books.html#showstopper